Having cooked with cast iron most of my life, both at home at at camp, here's a few of the reasons why I prefer it, especially in a more primitive environment. Please keep in mind this is for regular cast iron, not the enamale or porcelain clad stuff:

1) Perpetual stick resistance - Properly seasoned cast iron maintains a carbonized coating that resists having foods stick to it. It isn't foolproof, but with a minimal effort it can be maintained indefinitely.

2) Ease of cleanup - No matter how bad my cast iron gets fouled in the cooking process, even if I burn something in it, I need scant more than hot water and a fire to clean it to optimal condition again. Because of how it is seasoned and used, it is the only cookware I know of that can be "fire cleaned", that is, cleaned out by nothing more than direct heat. It is a worst case scenario when a casual soaking will not loosen truly baked on messes and I have to put the pot on the fire and let it burn the gunk to ash, usually requiring that I also re-season the pot thoroughly. However, usually the case is I just need to scrub the pot briefly with hot water (never soap), heat it up to a sterilizing temp (350-450 degrees for about 10 minutes), and occasionally "smoke" a layer of cooking oil, shortening or lard on the surface, which is simply applying a thin layer while it is hot enough to scorch the oil and let it go till the smoke quits, then let it cool off the flame on its own.

3) Versatility - because of the thickness of the pot and that cast iron doesn't conduct heat as readily as other metals, you have pretty good temp control for cooking just about anything, and I have. The trick is to balance the heat application to the type of cooking you do. For frying, boiling, simmering and sauteing, bottom heat is all that's required, so a stove, either gas or electric works fine, and a skillet is the dominant utensil. For baking and roasting, more heat needs to be applied from above, so if using wood or charcoal at camp instead of the range oven in the kitchen you need a pot with a lid that will retain embers or coals so the heat can convect down into the food as well as up from the bottom. With this option, I've baked some of the best biscuits, rolls, breads, cakes, quiches, casseroles, and roasted chickens, turkeys, hams, rib roasts, pot roasts, and ribs that my family and friends say they've ever feasted upon. For more delicate dishes like quiche or souffle, I simply use a trivet in the bottom of the pot and place the pan containing the delicacy inside to bake just like using a range oven at home. Even a water bath for custards is not that difficult.

There's other reasons too for using cast iron cookware, but I think you get the idea. The big drawback of course is that cast iron is not the lightweight, backpacking type cooking utensil. You will never find any cast iron in my backpacks, which is why I like mules. If you are gonna pack it in yourself, then I would stick with those gadget type cookware ensembles like jetboil and bakepacker that allow some variation to just being able to boil water, yet don't add twenty pounds to your pack.

During a power outage at home, I can and do use my cast iron for cooking anything I need or want. I can use other pans for frying and boiling things, but if I want to bake or roast and there's no electricity, all I need is a fire and I have a meal.

Let me put it this way, if I can make a meal of stuffed cornish game hens, twice baked potatoes, glazed carrots, sourdough rolls, and bumbleberry cobbler up at elk camp, in November, during a heavy driving snow, then it should suit me well back home when the lights go out.

My oldest pot is going on 25 years now. I've a cast iron muffin pan that is about 80 years old as well that I still use. I've seen pots in use that are pushing 200 years old now (a "spider" skillet used for hearth cooking, home made even).